Natasha Coutinho (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 30, 2017)

Sunny Leone’s special song “Piya More” with Emraan Hashmi in Baadshaho won’t sound the same anymore. Mirror has learnt that the lyrics of the song have been changed following allegations by filmmaker Jay Prakash, who claims it’s copied from the song “Nasha Sar Pe Chadke Bole” from his 2014 film, Dee Saturday Night. The filmmaker had threatened to take the matter to court for copyright infringement.

Incidentally, both songs were composed by Ankit Tiwari, while Mika and Neeti Mohan have given playback for “Piya More”. The hook line of the Baadshaho version has now been changed from “Haule Haule” to “Slowly Slowly”. While Tiwari chose not to comment, a spokesperson for Baadshaho told Mirror that the decision was taken in order to avoid further controversies. “Ankit Tiwari undertook the task to resolve an issue from his earlier composition which resembled the song 'Piya More' slightly. When he failed to do so, the filmmakers decided to make the necessary changes to avoid conflict,” the spokesperson revealed.

Incidentally, lyrics of another Baadshaho number, the new version of the 1975 Deewar hit “Keh Doon Tumhe” also had to be altered following a judgment passed by the division bench of the Mumbai High Court on Monday, where Rajiv Rai, who has the rights to the original, won the case. The spokesperson said, “T-Series had bought the rights to recreate 'Keh Doon Tumhe' from Universal, which included underlying rights. The court ruled that Universal can’t sell the underlying rights. So the court order was obeyed.

Producer claims Piya More from Emraan Hashmi-starrer has been lifted from Nasha Sar Pe from Dee Saturday Night
Upala KBR (DNA; July 27, 2017)

The latest song of Baadshaho, titled Piya More, featuring Emraan Hashmi and Sunny Leone, was launched with much fanfare on Tuesday. Now, the number has landed director Milan Luthria, music company T-Series and composer Ankit Tiwari in legal trouble.

Filmmaker Jai Prakkash has claimed that the number has been lifted from a lesser-known song, Nasha Sar Pe Chadke Bole, from his film Dee Saturday Night (2014). Tiwari has composed both the songs.

Speaking to mid-day, Prakash said, “I was shocked when I heard Piya More, it’s the same as Nasha Sar Pe Chadke Bole.” The director further elaborates that this is a case of copyright infringement. “They [makers of Baadshaho] must have asked Ankit to compose an item song and he conveniently lifted Ankit the song from my film. Ankit must have thought, ‘Film kisiko maloom nahi hai, producer flop baitha hua hai, kaun action lega?’”

Prakash has decided to take legal recourse. “I discussed the matter with Ashoke Pandit (vice president of IMPPA) and other members of the committee. They insisted that I take legal action.” He adds, “I’m shocked that people like Bhushan Kumar, Ajay Devgn and Milan Luthria, who are spending Rs 100 crore on the film, cannot [get their composer to] create another [original] song! I’ll take legal action against them and stop the movie’s release, if need be.”

When mid-day reached out to Tiwari, he said, “The two songs are definitely not similar. If you get a music expert to listen to both songs, he’ll tell you about [the difference in their] tunes and chord progression.”

Vinod Bhanushali, [president, T-Series] says the company approved the song composed by Tiwari and included it in the film. “How would I know if the music composer has sent us a tune which is similar [to an existing song]? Mr Jai Prakkash should ideally contact Ankit Tiwari."

HIGHWAY grossed around 13-13.25 crore nett in its first weekend. The film had an upward trend over the weekend but due to a slow start at most places it needed a bigger jump on Saturday. The growth had to be over 50% but was around the 35% range.

The film was released on just over 700 screens which helped the film as it was not playing in places where it had little chance of collecting. Today films which only have chances at city multiplexes are going to 1200 plus screens and most of these films hardly have collections at certain centers

HIGHWAY was restricted to 1-2 screens at multiplexes with only better collecting multiplexes going to two screens and the single screen was very limited to a few big cities.
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HIGHWAY was steady on Monday but with low collections as it grossed around 2.25 crore nett taking the four day total to 15.50 crore nett. The drop from Friday is just 30% approx but collections were low on Friday.

The film should hold steady over the weekdays and finish with around 21 crore nett in the first week which is on the lower side as a lower costing film like HASEE TOH PHASEE grossed 27 crore nett over the first week and that was just decent not great.

The second week will see competition from SHAADI KE SIDE EFFECTS, another film targeting the city multiplex audience. The approx four day breakdown of the film is as follows.
Friday - 3,25,00,000
Saturday 4,50,00,000
Sunday 5,50,00,000
Monday 2,25,00,000
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DARR @ THE MALL made little impact at the box office despite a wide release. The first weekend business was in the range of 3-3.25 crore nett as it collected around 1 crore nett on day one and it was in the same range in day two. Sunday however was slightly higher.

The collections are very bad for a film which has released on close to 1200 screens. The film could not put up decent collections even in circuits where horror films tend to do better. The poor start and no growth leaves the film with no chance at the box office.

The other releases of the week like DEE SATURDAY NIGHT and GULABI GANG were total washouts with the former not even touching 10 lakhs and the latter having negligible collections.